


dancing on a knife's edge

by fieryeyrie



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Ballroom Dancing, Canon Divergent, F/F, Flirting, Kissing, Post episode 5, Threats of Violence, no actual violence tho guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 03:56:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15258894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fieryeyrie/pseuds/fieryeyrie
Summary: Eve gets a message from one certain assassin, inviting her to meet at a fancy dress ball in Bordeaux. Set sometime after the kitchen scene in Episode 5.featuring:-a tension-infused dance that may or may not involve knives-eve in an edwardian dress and villanelle in a green velvet suit-a dash of kissing





	dancing on a knife's edge

Eve Polastri stands at the edge of the ballroom and scans the crowd. _Eight o’clock,_ the message said. _Don’t be late, baby._ But now she’s not even sure if Villanelle is here.

The room is wider than she’d been counting on. Marble floors stretch out before her, swept and knocked by a thousand hems and feet, with pillars rooted into the surface like teeth. The balconies above shelter passageways with the kinds of twists and turns you could get lost in. A ball, stylised to mirror the whims and fashions of the Edwardians.

She pulls her phone from the ridiculously small purse strung over her shoulder. Only enough room for the phone, and a revolver. _Just in case._ Technically it’s not her phone, it’s one of Kenny’s – hers is still in the hands of the assassin she’s here to meet. Which, after all, is how this began.

“Eve,” Elena had said a couple of days before, frowning at her from across the office. “I’ve just got a text from you, but it’s not _from_ you, it’s –”

“Let me take a look,” said Kenny. Elena glared at him for a moment before handing it begrudgingly over. She was shaken, Eve could tell, under the annoyance.

“Show me.”

Kenny turned the screen to let Eve read. _Fancy dress ball in Bordeaux, two days from now. 8.00. Don’t be late, baby._

“It’s Villanelle,” said Kenny.

“Yes, I think we’d gathered that, thankyou,” Elena quipped, then registered the contemplative look on Eve’s face. “Tell me you’re not actually considering this.”

Eve’s hands knotted together and unravelled again, falling back into her lap. “I don’t know,” she sighed. “I just –”

_“Eve.”_

“Just, what if – what if it’s important? This could be the moment we’ve been waiting for. Maybe she has information. Maybe we’ll catch her.”

“I thought we’d gone through this. She’s an _assassin_. It has to be some sort of trap.”

Eve picked at a loose thread in her sweater. “I still think it’s worth a shot.”

Carolyn entered later, bending to peer at the message with that hawkish, inscrutable look of hers.

“What’s your verdict?” Eve said.

Carolyn straightened, glancing at her sideways. “I think I’m going to leave this one in your hands,” she said. “Whether you need back-up, weapons – doesn’t bother me. But it’s your unit, and your decision.”

So Eve is here, at two minutes to eight, with security on call and a revolver in her purse. She knows Kenny will be watching closely from the cameras he’s managed to hack. Perhaps Elena is there by his side, stress-eating in a way that’s designed to mask her stress. Or perhaps she’s off drowning her worries elsewhere.

One minute to eight. She slips the phone back in her purse, somewhat ruffled by the disharmony of the antique setting and the device in her hand. She feels, too, the friction of the calm waltzing in front of her and the pressure of the task ahead.

“You’re here,” comes a voice behind her. Eve startles, then smooths down her dress as though the action will straighten her nerves as well. “I didn’t know if you were coming.”

Villanelle strolls around Eve to stand in front of her, hands rooted in the pockets of her green velvet suit. Eve tries not to focus on how well the cut accentuates her form, or on how she’s left the top button of her shirt undone. Wisps of hair curl softly from underneath her taut chignon, and Eve can’t help but wonder how they would feel to touch, what it would be like to wind her hand around that long neck and –

She blinks, mentally re-routing herself. “Let’s get to business, Oksana.”

Villanelle nods. “Shall we dance?”

“Oh,” says Eve, “uh, sure.”

Villanelle pauses, sensing her nervousness. “You’ll do fine,” she says. “I will lead, it’s easy.”

“But – two women? Won’t people think it’s odd?”

Villanelle says nothing for a moment, her eyes trailing downwards in appraisal of Eve’s figure, as though she’d forgotten it was a woman she was speaking to. Inadvertently Eve wonders whether the assassin, too, is imagining her hands making the same journey, exploring the fabric of her bodice and then coming to rest at her hips. She pushes back the thought as her neck begins to flush.

“They’re usually a liberal set of people, this crowd,” Villanelle replies at last. “I don’t think anyone will care.”

The assassin offers a hand. Eve takes it gingerly.

“Nice dress, by the way,” Villanelle says, addressing the path ahead of them.

“Thank you,” says Eve, unsure if there’s a double meaning, a threat encased in her words. She has to agree, all the same – it’s a damn nice dress. She and Elena spent ages picking it out, making sure it was suited perfectly to the era. It suits her, too, with its black lace and sweeping off-white skirts. _It’d better not turn out to be for nothing,_ she thinks, though she’s not quite sure what qualifies as the opposite of nothing.

When they reach the dance floor, Villanelle turns out to be right; hardly anyone bats an eye as they join the array of twirling couples. Wordlessly the assassin takes Eve into her arms and begins to guide her through each step.

“This foot back.” The words fall feather-soft against her ear. “And now we rotate.” She moves back to find Eve’s eyes. “You’re good at this.”

“Thanks,” she says. She’s aggravated by the near-bewilderment in her voice.

They’re so _close_. She’s done this before, of course, at some social event or another. There have been Christmas parties at work, and that traditional Polish dance class she attended with Niko while they stayed with his family. She knows where to put her hands. She knows how to follow the rhythm of the orchestra as it falls and swells.

But this is different. Here, with Villanelle’s hand steadying her at the waist, the other meeting her palm so effortlessly. The assassin’s eyes survey her with a detached determination. _Lost. Direct. Chilling._ In this moment they are concentrated, intense, her gaze both tearing through Eve and threatening to absorb her entire being. Yes, Eve thinks peripherally, she could lose herself in these eyes, she could _melt_ –

“Have you been to Bordeaux before?” asks Villanelle.

“Once, I think,” she says, “but that was a while ago. You?”

“A few times, yes.”

Eve nods, focusing on the chandelier over her shoulder. A good, rigid mark as they turn, except that it’s so fragile, scattered, exactly as she feels. She looks away. Steels herself.

“What do you know, Oksana?” Her voice is low, skirting gravel. “What do you know about the Twelve?”

She feels Villanelle stiffen, then draw her further in. “Closer,” she says. A voice like warm syrup.

“Answer me,” says Eve.

“I’ve told you,” Villanelle says. “I know nothing of the Twelve.”

“I – I refuse to believe that,” says Eve. Her voice drops to a whisper. “I want to help you, Oksana. You and girls like Nadia, roped into this life of killing and deceit and crime. I know there’s something that must have happened, something that _broke_ you, and I –”

She stops as a line of cool metal comes to rest against her neck. A knife, concealed in a gesture that could so easily be passed off as a dance hold, a caress.

“I’m _really_ not in the mood,” Villanelle says. Eve tenses. “Let’s talk somewhere else, okay?” Her words, like the knife in her hand, are sheathed in a smile.

Eve has little choice but to follow her, travelling in rhythmic circles across the room, until they reach one of the many hallways.

“Come,” says Villanelle. She steers her, knife still pressed against her neck, into a dim alcove down the hall. Out of sight from cameras, Eve realises. She must know this.

“You know,” Villanelle goes on as they come to a halt, running a finger thoughtfully down the wall beside Eve’s head, “this building could really do with a repaint.”

Eve opens her mouth, and then closes it. Villanelle removes the knife, slowly. Eve relaxes but moves a hand to her purse instinctively. _Just in case._

“Take the gun out, if you find it comforting,” Villanelle says. “I don’t mind.”

 _Shit._ Eve should have known.

“I –” she starts, but the words cinder in her mouth. She doesn’t take out the revolver. She looks Villanelle right in the eye. “Why am I here, Oksana?”

Villanelle meets her gaze with a coy twist to her expression. “Maybe I wanted to see you again.”

“Oksana, I’m serious.”

“I think you wanted to see me again, too.”

“Oh, yeah? And why would you think that, after last time?” She recalls the knife against her sternum, the tears stinging her cheeks.

“You spent a lot of money on this dress.” Villanelle lifts a hand to run it slowly, ponderingly, across the lace at her neck. Her fingertips graze Eve’s collarbone, and Eve shivers slightly. “You and your friend took so long to choose it. I guess this meeting meant a lot to you.”

It’s a threat, it’s a compliment, it’s an invitation. It’s so very Villanelle.

When she’s regained her composure, Eve tries again. “Why did you want me to come here, Oksana?”

“You’re always saying my name,” Villanelle muses. “I think you like it. The way it falls from your tongue.”

“Quit avoiding my question.”

“Fine.” She shrugs. “I had an assignment here in Bordeaux. I was bored.”

Fleeting panic enters her mind. _What if I’m the assignment?_

“You’re _not_ the target,” Villanelle says immediately. It’s infuriating how easily she reads her, or at least how well she can predict Eve’s thoughts. “It was a French financial minister. You’ll hear about that soon enough.”

The expression on her face is so arrogant, so apathetic, it ignites some deep thread of anger in Eve’s chest. She’s maddening, she’s sickening, she’s dizzying. Villanelle’s hand is cool on her shoulder, eyes trained on her own, and she’s so _close_ that her perfume fills Eve’s nose and clouds her head. She tells herself it’s anger, though, that stirs the blood to her cheeks.

“That’s why I’m here?” says Eve. “You – you were bored?”

“More or less.”

Eve scoffs, pushing the hand from her shoulder. “Then I’m _leaving_ , you asshole –”

“Don’t.”

A gentle but firm motion, pinning her back in place against the alcove’s inner wall. She wonders briefly if this is where she dies, at the hands of an assassin, wearing an Edwardian dress in a French hall. _Could be worse._ But all the same –

“I’ll call for back-up, Oksana, I swear it.”

“Will you?”

She feels a hand slide over the material around her waist. Forward, but not threatening. It’s becoming less and less clear to Eve exactly why her heart is racing as it is. Villanelle’s eyes are fixed on hers, still so all-consuming, dropping intermittently to her lips and back.

“I mean it,” says Eve, but the words slip from her mouth and shatter. Meaningless.

Villanelle traces her jawline slowly with the outer edge of her finger. “Leave if you want to, Eve Polastri.”

“You really are an asshole, you know that?” Eve mutters. Then she takes Villanelle’s face in both hands and pulls her close.

It’s not like time stops, exactly, but it slurs. It slows down enough for Eve to savour the kiss, to memorise everything that’s only existed in her mind until now. Villanelle’s hand travels to tangle through the hair she so adores, the other arching around her middle to pull their hips together. Eve shifts her grasp unhurriedly to reach a hand around the back of Villanelle’s neck. It’s softer than she’d imagined, the short strands of hair curling between her fingers, and the movement deepens the kiss exactly as she’d hoped.

Eve relaxes, almost sighs into the kiss as their tongues meet, and Villanelle smirks ever so slightly against her mouth in response. Eve’s thoughts are a blur. Rising in her chest is a confusing blend of emotions, raw feelings rather than anything attached to words, except to ask, “what’s the catch?” She’s in the arms of an assassin. A serial killer. She could be dead by the time they break apart.

Villanelle pulls away suddenly, hands still meshed in Eve’s hair, her breaths heavy.

“I can feel you thinking,” she says, her eyes searching Eve’s. There’s something new there, darting across her face; something strangely vulnerable. “Just kiss me.”

Eve hesitates. This is the part where she pushes her away for good, where she sends in security, where she pulls out her gun.

“Okay.”

And she kisses her. Focuses only on what she feels. On Oksana’s fingers insistent against her scalp, the heat of their bodies flush against the wall. On the curve of Villanelle’s neck under her grasp, the occasional intermissions of teeth along her lips. The background noise of chatter and music and waltzing feet grow secondary to the quiet symphony of their mouths, the dull rustle of their clothes.

For now there is only this. This moment, this place, this feeling. And that suits Eve just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it, folks! Come find me at @eve-polastris-hair on Tumblr to obsess over the show, yell about Eve's hair, or just say hi. Comments and kudos mean the world :)


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